UPS: The Power Unlimited!

Availability of uninterrupted power plays a major role in the industrial growth of any region. Unswerving supply of voltage in Industry is vital for machinery to function safely and avoid damages due to sudden power failure, as various machinery functions for a longer duration.

Here UPS-Uninterrupted Power Supply- comes as a great appliance to assist in every Industry for the production of regular power supply and security from the voltage fluctuation causing a major loss. It is a short-term and best solution for users in terms of instant and back up supply. In a country like India, where increasing gap between power supply and demand causes electricity crisis and excessive load shedding as well as the power failure due to numerous reasons, UPS market is poised to grow at a considerable rate. UPS is different from an auxiliary or emergency power system or standby generator as it provides near-instantaneous protection from input power interruptions by supplying energy stored in batteries, super capacitors, or flywheels

According to industry leaders circumstances arisen with COVID 19 has catalysed the need for greater investment focussing on the growing power solution business in India.it could be more effective and efficient with hybrid storage source and active power filter. Moreover, the growing trends in UPS industry has been observed because it delivers a continuous and clean power supply to critical and sensitive loads without delay or transients.

As per market reports, the UPS market in India is expected to expand at a CAGR of over 8% from 2018 to 2025, end of the forecast period. The Global market is estimated to grow by $ 4.83 billion during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of almost 4% during the forecast period. India being a power deficit nation has a large market for power backup products. There has been a growing trend in recognizing UPS systems as an essential power backup device as nearly every organization today uses computers to smoothen their workflows. Being the third largest producer and consumer of electricity in the world, India’s growth in this domain is powered by increasing power requirements and sustained economic prowess. The Government of India (GOI) has presented their goal of achieving 227 GW in capacity of renewable energy by 2022, thereby providing a greater impetus for organizations and industries to accelerate their efforts in investment and execution of clean and green solutions.  Digitization and technology will pave the way forward for enabling more efficient power systems, upgrading existing grid systems and setting new capacities for load management and energy storage. The GOI’s initiative to digitize various internal departments coupled with ‘The National e-Governance Plan’ should further boost the demand for UPS systems. Additionally, the initiative “Make in India” is intended to improve local manufacturing and should in turn have a positive impact on the commercial UPS segment. Government’s initiative to computerize its various departments coupled with The National e-Governance Plan’ is expected to boost the demand for low-end UPS systems through 2025.

Power outages in the country is creating the need for power backup solutions in the commercial and industrial sectors and thus driving growth in the UPS industry. Further, the move to remote work focusses on the need to outsource critical workloads to highly automated operations and emphasises on the need for additional redundancy capability. Power shortage in the country acts as a boon to the Power Backup industry of India. UPS has emerged as a very important appliance as it helps to save the important data in. E-Commerce, data centres, servers, and electronic & medical equipment as they need high level of uninterrupted power supply and thus generating significant demand for high power range of UPS systems in India. 

AS per Statista report, IndiaUPS Market total worldwide revenue stood at approximately US$ 3.94 trillion in 2019. In 2014, the India UPS Market generated revenues of US$ 5.4 trillion at a record high. Moreover, demand for high-end UPS is expected to arise from growing installations of high-end electronic equipment and machineries in industrial set-ups. As per a recently published report “India Uninterruptible power Supply (UPS) Market Overview, 2018- 2023”, it has been estimated that the UPS solution is ever increasing due to the rising demand for electricity amongst consumers and enterprises as well as the need for quality power. Currently, there is a huge demand for inverters and UPS systems in various sectors across India. The major driver is the IT sector, followed by the IT enabled services and industries, including telecom, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), and manufacturing.

Though government has carried out various efforts towards increasing power generation over the last decade, there is still a huge mismatch between power supply and demand. Power problems and low electrification in semi-urban and rural areas has also led to the rising demand for power inverters, which are being used as an alternate power source during power cuts and emergencies.

However, the biggest reason for the adoption of UPS systems and inverters is the shortage of power, and the gap between demand and supply. Industry leaders says that UPS systems and inverters are no more luxury products. Today installation of UPS is not restricted to homes and offices of rich people, in fact, it can be seen in every office, institution and business. UPS systems too have become a part and parcel of our daily life. People cannot take those power cuts and interruptions lightly and they look for immediate alternative power sources and UPS systems fit the bill. This has resulted in the increased demand of portable power stations too. It has become imperative for those who use electronic gadgets and appliances such as mobile phones, laptops, smart TVs, air conditioners, etc, to buy power stations to fulfil the requirement of more backup power. It is used to charge mobile phones and tablets that are very easy to carry anywhere are a major driver of the inverter and UPS system market. The market has also witnessed the introduction of many new technology trends and innovations to address changing consumer preferences and lifestyles

Growing demand from diverse sectors such as IT and IT enabled services (ITeS); banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI); government, manufacturing, telecom, and energy sectors continues to drive the UPS market in India. Increasing demand for high-end UPS is expected to arise from growing installations of high-end electronic equipment and machineries in industrial set-ups. Furthermore, increasing penetration of IT/ITES sector in Tier-II & Tier II cities of the country is also anticipated to boost the demand for UPS systems in the coming years. Therefore, Indian UPS market is expected to witness double-digit growth in the coming years.

India is on the path to become a manufacturing hub over the coming years with government efforts to support the continued expansion of this sector. Several global giants such as General Electric, Toshiba, Siemens, and Boeing have either set up or are in process of setting up their manufacturing plants in India. The aforementioned developments along with the rising number of data centres across the country would propel the demand for uninterruptible power supply systems in India over the years to come. The India UPS market is highly concentrated among big companies, such as Microtek, Okaya, Hitachi, etc., that offer high-power and long-lasting UPS. The companies launch a wide range of products to cater to the needs of various devices and industries. Furthermore, the adoption of competitive strategies, such as partnership, mergers, acquisition, collaborations, etc., is also prominent in this market. Key players in the global uninterrupted power supplies market focus on introduction of advanced technology and services in order to improve their offerings and strengthen position in the market.

As per market reports, online segment is growing significantly with a strong CAGR during the forecast period. For applications where power losses due to inefficiencies are less of a concern and eliminating the delay from grid power available to back power is paramount, Online (or double conversion) is the only solution. Online systems followed line interactive systems due to its popularity among large organizations and data centres. Moreover, online systems are slightly more expensive as compared to line-interactive systems.

Offline/Standby segment is also growing significantly with a healthy CAGR during the forecast period. They are the most common type of UPS used for personal computers. The systems are considered as best value for personal workstations, however, for other applications, line interactive and online are better. For backup applications where low cost is critical, an offline solution is acceptable, although it will not provide suitable protection against spikes or sags from the grid.

Lately, with the improvement in the fast switching devices and advanced micro-controllers transformer less UPS systems are available with greater efficiency, high performance at lower costs. Whereas, in low power applications also, conventional storage is replaced with fuel cells and hybrid technology. Research and development is going on for efficient control strategy to attain fast dynamic and transient response, good voltage regulation, low THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) and stability with implementation of hybrid active power filter.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has adversely impacted the global market in the first half of 2020 and market witnessed disruptions in the supply chain and logistics, impacting product delivery. Due to WFH norms across the world, the residential sector observed high installation demand for UPS systems. Many power plants and substations were working with a limited workforce, resulting in recurrent load shedding. Due to this, the market registered an increase in demand for UPS systems from the industrial sector. In India too, UPS marketexperienced a slowdown. The degree of competition among prominent global companies has been developed by analysing several leading competitors operating globally. As per leaders, specialist analysts examine various aspects of the IndiaUPS Market, including market competition, market share, and the most recent advancements in the industry, innovative product launches, partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions by leading companies.

India is emerging as a major cloud computing and data centre service provider around the world, which is estimated to fuel the demand for UPS in the coming years. UPS is one of the crucial components of a data centre as it maintains the infrastructure until consistent power returns. UPS systems also secure uptime of large data centres and provide facility-wide protection for sensitive electronics. As per market reports, with increasing investment towards the construction of data centres, the demand for UPS is estimated to surge during the forecast period, propelling the overall market growth.

In data centres, UPS systems work as servers that operate during the whole year and can consume up to 100 times more energy than a standard office building. To increase the efficiency and decrease the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratio, designers and manufacturers are developing innovative management solutions to reduce the energy consumption in these systems. As per industry experts, this factor will drive the industry demand for green data centre UPS.

The presence of alternative technologies for power sources acts as a major restrictive factor for the India UPS market growth. A sealed battery is one of the most commonly used power sources which acts as an alternative for UPS. A flywheel is also used as an alternative to UPS due to its various benefits, such as small physical space requirement and acceptable operating temperature that are higher than the batteries. The industrial and commercial sectors, which are the most aware of these options, prefer to use them. For example, NxtGen’s data centre at Bidadi, Karnataka, partially draws power from solar panels. It has announced its plans to convert all its data centres to solar enabled in the next five years. The adoption of solar-powered data centres will affect the demand for UPS and generators in data centres.

Looking at it geographically, the India UPS market is segmented into North India, South India, East India, and West India. The Western region of the country accounts for the largest market share owing to the flourishing commercial and industrial sectors in this region. Gujarat and certain parts of Maharashtra, including Mumbai & Pune are witnessing substantial growth, which requires a constant power supply to keep their operations growing. This is significantly propelling the demand for UPS, driving its market growth. On the other hand, Southern India also covers a substantial share in the market because of the growing IT and Telecom sector.

Market experts say that making power backup equipment available in smaller sizes would ensure greater revenue, especially from the SME and SOHO segments. Players can also look to venture into e-commerce business models along with doorstep delivery systems. Another emerging area is that of superior after-sales services. A widespread service centre network will help companies build trust and ensure recommendations from existing customers, thereby adding to their goodwill and brand value. Moreover, cross-selling platforms for low-voltage products via the diffused channels are expected to bring about a greater visibility amongst end users, thus leading to greater revenues. Finally, to survive and succeed in such an intensely competitive market, players must distinguish their product and service offerings through clear and unique value proposition.

Data Centre UPS Market

Market reports estimated Data Centre UPS Market sizeat over USD 3.5 billion in 2020 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of more than 6% from 2021 to 2027. The growing implementation of cloud computing has resulted in the rise in the number of hyperscale data centres. Cisco Systems, Inc. predicted that major part of workloads and computing task will be processed in cloud by 2021. Increased scalability and agility offered by cloud solutions are supporting their acceptance across several industry verticals, in turn, fuelling the establishment of cloud data centre facilities. This will bring about rise in the usage of UPS systems that safeguards uninterrupted power supply to these mega facilities.

Markets and Markets projects the global data centre power market to grow from USD 19.1 billion in 2020 to USD 26.1 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.4% during the forecast period. The key factors driving the data centre power market include growing construction of new data centres due to the rising demand for data storage by organizations across the globe; The unprecedented rise in power consumption by the data centres has increased operational and power costs, and it has become a challenge for end users to manage and conserve power in the data centres.


 R&D has become one of the major focus areas of the power backup systems market. For the overall development of the industry and to create win-win situation for both manufacturers and users by increasing the cost-effectiveness, it has become vital for the companies to invest in R&D activities.

Data centre managers and IT professionals focus on the implementation of highly efficient data centre power solutions for business continuity. During the critical pandemic situation, data centres and data centre power are playing a vital role for organisations globally. The exponential growth in the amount of data consumed and generated by various organizations and individuals has pushed the rise in demand for data storage leading to the increase in number of reliable and highly available data centres. Globally data centres are emerging as computational hubs for end-users and enterprises as the number of work-from-home jobs has highly surged. Efficient data centre power systems makes the data centre facility highly dependable as technologies like edge computing, IoT, and 5G makes it possible for the organization to tackle COVID-19 related risks and customer expectations.

Power backup for data centres can be defined as the essential component, as without it the data centres cannot carry out its function. It helps decrease unplanned downtime and offers power to the data centres through power stored in batteries and supplied by UPS. UPS helps the data centres to support critical load during the time of power outages and streamline their functions by supplying power to critical equipment. Thus, the data centres with backup systems can obtain significant cost benefits, increase dependability, and enhance and ensure business continuity. Power backup also helps in acting as a bridge between mains failure and start-up generator.

Furthermore, the growth factors behind the global Data Centre UPS market growth are – increasing data storage needs, higher adoption of cloud computing, the rapid growth of big data and data science within various industry verticals, and development of IT infrastructure within different developing countries. Power outages and fluctuations and power disruption that pose a threat to the data centres are creating need for the usage of UPS. Cloud computing services are spending about 4.5 times the rate of IT spending. The primary growth of the cloud is due to its availability of about 99% and ease of access. Cloud services need to be online to deliver services which increase the need for UPS systems.

Globally, Mordor Intelligence (Market Intelligence and Advisory Firm) says, many UPS facilities also have service level agreements (SLA) with the consumers they provide services to. These  SLAs have clauses for fine and penalty in case of loss of data, or unavailability of resources for a prolonged period of time which further necessitates the need for better UPS systems.

Another significant development in the data center is the growing importance of mega data centers service providers, which are the primary server location for large UPS and cloud service providers. These mega Data Centers require state of the art UPS systems to be efficient.

As the demand for the data storage is increasing, all the organizations are investing in the construction of new data centres all around the world that will drive the market for data centre UPS market for the forecast period. But the factors, as per industry experts, might hinder the growth of the Data Centre UPS market for the forecast period will be the high initial cost and high maintenance cost of UPS. The Global “Data Centre UPS Market” expected to grow at a CAGR of over 9.8% during the forecast period (2021-2028).

Industry leader reveals that the key players are adopting strategies such as investing in R&D, new product launches, and expansion in distribution channels to stand out as strong competitors in the market. Global Data Centre UPS Market is a fragmented market with the presence of various global and regional players in the market.